The skin that I live in

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Movie
German title The skin that I live in
Original title La piel que habito
Country of production Spain
original language Spanish
Publishing year 2011
length 121 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
JMK 16
Rod
Director Pedro Almodovar
script Pedro Almodovar
production Agustín Almodóvar ,
Esther García Rodríguez
music Alberto Iglesias
camera José Luis Alcaine
cut José Salcedo
occupation
synchronization

The skin in which I live (original title: La piel que habito ) is a Spanish melodrama with thriller elements by director Pedro Almodóvar from 2011. Almodóvar also wrote the screenplay, which is based on the novel Mygale by Thierry Jonquet .

action

Toledo in 2012. Surgeon Robert Ledgard, who has set up a laboratory and operating room in his mansion, is obsessed with creating new and more robust skin for people. He told his colleagues that he had only successfully tested the new skin on mice so far. But in reality he is holding a young woman prisoner in his villa, who serves as a "guinea pig". Vera is locked in a room, is constantly being filmed by cameras and is looked after by the housekeeper Marilia, who is privy to the crime. When Ledgard is not at home, Zeca, Maria's son, appears. He has committed a robbery and is wanted by the police. When he noticed the trapped Vera on surveillance monitors, he asked his mother to bring him to her. But she refuses, whereupon Zeca ties and gags her in the kitchen. Zeca thinks Vera is his former lover, opens the locked door from the outside and rapes her. Ledgard, who returns, shoots Zeca.

Vera learns from Marilia that the housekeeper is both Zeca and Ledgard's birth mother; while one of the two half-brothers slipped into criminality, the other apparently made a perfect civil career. Ledgard does not know that Marilia is his mother, he was raised as the legitimate son of her then master. Marilia also tells Vera that Zeca had a relationship with Ledgard's wife Gal. In flashbacks, it is explained that Gal and Zeca had a car accident, was about to leave as Gal Ledgard for Zeca. Zeca was able to escape from the car, Gal suffered severe burns, but survived. However, after her physical healing, Gal takes her own life after seeing her face in a mirror for the first time. Their daughter Norma witnessed the suicide and has been severely traumatized ever since. Apparently on the mend, she meets the young fashion designer Vicente at a wedding party. Under the influence of drugs, he tried to rape her. In a panic, Norma bites Vicente and yells for help, whereupon he beats her to silence. Ledgard finds Norma, who is so distraught that she has to go to a mental hospital. Norma no longer recognizes her father. Like her mother, she kills herself by jumping out the window.

Ledgard blames Vicente for his daughter's death, kidnaps him and locks him in the basement of his estate. After days of loneliness and hunger, he is given food, shaved and drugged. When he wakes up from the anesthesia, he finds that Ledgard has performed a sex change on him . Little by little, Ledgard formed the beautiful Vera in many surgeries from Vicente, designing her face after that of his late wife Gal.

In 2012, Vera / Vicente seems to have come to terms with their assigned fate. She enters into a love affair with Ledgard. After she was allowed to move freely in the city for the first time, she returned to the property. She explains to a colleague of Ledgards, who has become suspicious, that she has always been a woman. But after a tender get-together, she shoots Ledgard and his mother Marilia and returns to her / his mother's sewing room. There she is only recognized by the long-time employee when she shows her the dress that she wanted to give her before she was kidnapped. When both burst into tears, their mother joins them and is initiated.

background

Actors and director at the premiere in Cannes (from left to right): Blanca Suárez , Jan Cornet , Elena Anaya , Pedro Almodóvar , Antonio Banderas , Marisa Paredes , Jean Paul Gaultier

Novel and film

Thierry Jonquet's novel was first published in France in 1984 under the title Mygale . The title refers to the French "mygales" for tarantula . The kidnapped man gives this nickname to his tormentor in the book. In Germany the novel was published under the title of the film adaptation.

Pedro Almodóvar took over some of the basic motifs from the literary model, but changed not only the name but also essential details. While Zeca (in the book Alex) only appears briefly at the beginning of the film, he is the most important figure in Jonquet's novel alongside Robert (in the book Richard Lafargue) and Vera / Vicente (in the book Ève / Vincent). Only in the finale of the novel do Zeca, Robert and Vera meet, whereby it is not Zeca and Robert who turn out to be half-brothers, but Zeca and Vera / Vicente as childhood friends who both raped Robert's daughter together. Robert kills Zeca; Vera / Vicente decides to help Robert clean up Zeca's body despite the humiliation he has suffered.

In addition to the novel, Almodóvar also refers to the works of the artist Louise Bourgeois, which give the figure Vera / Vicente a psychological depth that is not inherent in Jonquet in this form. In the works of Bourgeois, Almodóvar reflects on his film art. Using the analogy of cutting and gluing together, he creates a connection between the sculptures by Bourgeois and film editing.

Film start

The premiere took place on May 19, 2011 in competition at the 64th Cannes International Film Festival . The cinema release in Spain was on September 2, 2011, in Germany on October 20, 2011.

The skin I live in is available internationally on DVD and Blu-ray Disc .

synchronization

Christa Kistner synchronous production in Potsdam was responsible for the German setting . Joachim Kunzendorf wrote the dialogue book and directed the dialogue.

role actor Voice actor
Robert Ledgard Antonio Banderas Jacques Breuer
Vera Cruz Elena Anaya Bianca Krahl
Marilia Marisa Paredes Katarina Tomaschewsky
Zeca Roberto Álamo Sascha Rotermund
Vicente Jan Cornet Tobias Nath
Norma Ledgard Blanca Suarez Kaya Marie Möller
Fulgencio Eduard Fernández Oliver Siebeck
President of the Biotechnological Institute José Luis Gómez Kaspar Eichel

criticism

“The adaptation of a detective novel, supplemented by grotesque sprinkles and characters, which Pedro Almodóvar expands into a sovereignly nested revenge thriller and gives it a high proportion of trash . A coolly staged, often broken reflection on revenge and creativity, love and sexual identity, in which all relationships are shaped by dark memories or obscure relationships of power and powerlessness. "

- Lexicon of international film

Influences

Almodóvar counts Alice Munro to be one of his most valued short story writers. The protagonist of this film reads Munro's Runaway collection (2004).

Awards (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Age rating for The Skin I Live in . Youth Media Commission .
  2. ↑ Junkerjürgen, Ralf: “La peli que habito: Intermedialidad entre el arte, la auto-reflexión and product placement en la obra de Almodóvar” . In: Bulletin of Hispanic Studies . tape 95 , no. 1 , 2018, p. 67-71 .
  3. ↑ The Skin I Live in in the Internet Movie Database .
  4. ↑ a b The skin in which I live in the dictionary of international filmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used .
  5. ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | The skin that I live in. Retrieved March 15, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Pilar Somacarrera: A Spanish Passion for the Canadian Short Story: Reader Responses to Alice Munro's Fiction in Web 2.0 Open Access , in: Made in Canada, Read in Spain: Essays on the Translation and Circulation of English-Canadian Literature Open Access , edited by Pilar Somacarrera, de Gruyter, Berlin 2013, pp. 129-144, p. 143, ISBN 9788376560175